


Swan Song

by mizael



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizael/pseuds/mizael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>swan song: the last act or manifestation of someone or something; a farewell appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at 5am and i REGRET

Yuuto’s death is a swan song, a finality of finalities, the soft words and rushed promises in the last dying breaths of a regretful ( _ regretful _ ) human being, the closing curtain that drops with no flash of applause or glory. He departs from this world with a slow breath, dragged from life with a dragon’s anger, and leaves Yuuya on his knees staring at the grass with the dragon’s roar still ringing in his ears, the dragon’s breath still hot on his neck. He departs from this world with a final wish and a final hope, a final finality in the cold embrace of death, scattered with particles of light and dancing hypothetical tachyons that carry Yuuto away into the voided abyss of the unknown.

(There is no body for Yuuya to mourn, no gentle caress for the last vestiges of life upon a smiling corpse, a peaceful corpse, for even the universe must surely hate him, to drag Yuuto from his life with all the rage of a monster’s instability as quickly as he had come into it.)

Yuuya cannot say—even as he lies awake at night and ponders, even as he gives his body away to the very anger that had taken Yuuto—what exactly Yuuto’s death was. Yuuya does not have the right to say to a corpse’s best friend, all anger and vengeance and seething rage, the blue-black feathers and sharp eyes of a predator, what exactly Yuuto meant to him, for their time together had been naught but an hour of recklessness and bravado, blind mistrust and snarling teeth. In the span of less than that, Yuuya had become the medium and the priest, the person with the authority to speak about the life of the dead that he had only met ( _ truly _ met) for less than ten minutes, crying tears more from disbelief than from sadness.

So when Kurosaki Shun bares his fangs and teeth and snarls with the same anger of the dragons (a hawk that imitates those that came before, the large reptilian bodies of monsters that rest beneath the earth), Yuuya is ready to lie down and bare his body to the beast who yearns for answers written in blood, because it cannot read anything else, blinded as he is by the smoke and debris of a city destroyed. If Kurosaki Shun can find peace in the corpse of a ghost, then Yuuya would provide the means. If Yuuto’s last, dying breath and last, dying wish could be carried on the wings of a predator, of a cynic, of a pathetic shell of a human being, then Yuuya would pass the torch, too weak to hold onto it, too weak-willed to carry on.

But no sooner does Kurosaki Shun flare his feathers and prepares to devour Yuuya whole, he stops. Carved (engraved) into his golden eyes are the first signs of confusion, of disbelief, of  _ hope _ —a litany of emotions that run rampant on his usually scowling face, eyes searching all of Yuuya for the last image of a friend he had held dear. Kurosaki Shun turns around in the next second and grits his teeth, doesn't say anything more to Yuuya than a grunt and a  _ nevermind _ , as if suddenly the questions to Yuuto’s location, Yuuto’s death, and Yuuto’s wellbeing had been answered in the split second Kurosaki Shun had faltered and looked somewhere else, as if  _ someone else _ had answered for him.

Yuuya doesn't like the look Kurosaki wears when he looks at him,  _ looking past him _ , trying to find some semblance of familiarity in a twisted colorway of the same face but different person of his best friend. Yuuya frowns but doesn't say anything, because he knows Kurosaki Shun needs his solace, because he does it for Yuuto’s dying words, because even if he would like to march right up to this pathetic, grieving predator (that he sees himself in) and say with a firm clarity that Yuuya is his own person, his own culture, his own  _ soul _ and not a  _ substitute _ , he can't.

He can’t because he shuts his mouth and clamps down on his feelings, too used to faking it already, and lets Kurosaki grieve in the thin silence of his broad back, repeating a mantra in his head that, at the very least, he can do this for  _ Yuuto _ , that Kurosaki can have his misguided grief for as long as he needs to get over it without a word from Yuuya.

_ He used to smile, too. A big one, a large one, a smile that could light up the room _ .

Yuuto’s voice is a phantom in his ears and Yuuya brushes it off with a shake of his head, determined to ignore the problems growing in his face, encompassing his throat and his mouth until he can’t say a thing, and instead shoves his eyes to the broken modeled duel disk that Akaba Reiji presents as  _ Yuuto’s _ .

(It doesn't matter, in the end, they are separated and scattered along the broken roads of the Synchro dimension, the dilapidated buildings of the Commons and heavy atmosphere. When he sees Kurosaki Shun next it is in a flurry of movement and panic as they escape a prison, the unadulterated chaos of manic happy laughter and genuine entertainment, and there lingers no more doubt in his eyes, no more grief or ghosts.

Yuuya breathes a sigh he doesn’t know he was holding, and focuses on the more important matters of his exhibition match, pushing Kurosaki Shun to the back of his mind because he no longer  _ needs _ to be at the front.)

Dark Rebellion weighs like bricks in his pocket, tied to his deck like chains and collars—tied to his destiny like the loud rev of a motorcycle and Yuuto’s last cry for Yuuya’s safety.

It is only when Yuuya sees that dragon again—crystalline and beautiful, a thousand transparent jade stones and a thousand more hide of diamonds—that he remembers with all intensity what it is that Yuuto had wished of him: beyond smiles and friendship, beyond Yuuya’s desperate cry for broken bonds, beyond his delusions of entertainment and happiness, beyond all his failed attempts to fight the depression that gnaws like insects in his brain, trying to convince himself of the words of a father who had been gone too quickly.

In his last breath Yuuto had asked for peace—not so naive as to ask one fourteen year old boy with broken dreams and broken heart to restore peace—but to have the wish and the belief for a brighter future.

Yuuto had asked for  _ hope _ .

Sakaki Yuuya crashes into the cold, dark, and broken hall of an abandoned subway station, dying but holding, and steps forward to thrust that very hope in Academia’s way—a hope that he is willing to try and achieve, even if he shall fail, because then at least he can say he  _ tried _ . He readies his duel disk and feels the pounding of his heart in his ears, the adrenaline running tracks in his blood, and  _ hopes _ that he can protect this dimension even if he is too weak to do it, that he can protect his friends even if he will be bloodied, bruised, and beaten.

(And when he lies defeated on the ground, the tears threatening to drown his eyes, his own friend kidnapped just as quickly as Yuuto had gone, he finds that hope is the only thing that can drag him forward—hope is the only thing he has left.)

**Author's Note:**

> will smith pose at the comment box


End file.
